Books and That, #1 (September 2022)

Things I've Read Recently

I have three magazines currently on subscription, plus a load of back issues from all three PLUS Mermaids Monthly, which ran for a year in 2020/21. Uncanny Magazine and Apex Magazine I back each year through Kickstarter at the subscription level, and my Dad bought me a sub for BBC History about 15 years ago for Christmas and never seems to have cancelled it, to my joy. Uncanny and Apex are both SF & Fantasy short story journals, and BBC History is a non-fiction semi-academic serial - the articles are usually written by academics, but with a popular history focus and style.

• Uncanny Magazine, 48
• Apex Magazine, 133
  
• BBC History Magazine, September 2022

Books - any format

• Spin / Robert Charles Wilson
• September bookgroup book.
  Interesting, and enjoyable. I liked the characters and enjoyed the story, I'm just not sure that I am desperate to read the remaining books in the series. This one ended on a perfectly satisfactory note, and I'm content waving characters off into their Brave New Future without having to see it...
• The Starless Sea / Erin Morgenstern
• This has the same feel as her earlier book, The Night Circus. For me, both of these were books that kept me intrigued and therefore kept me reading. Because her books are very twisty, I find that I can't just leave them because there is no way for me to figure out exactly where she is going with all her characters. She is a master of feeding you just enough information to keep the story interesting and moving, without signposting where she's going all the time. 
• The Witness for the Dead / Katherine Addison
• I adored the Goblin Emperor, and I've realised that I love books about new worlds and with heavy world creation in them. The story in The Goblin Emperor was cleanly finished, so I was worried about how this was going to be a series without screwing around with characters. This works, however, because she's moving different characters to the forefront of the story, ones who were important and about whom we felt had More To Know. One of The Goblin Emperor's strengths was the way in which characters were introduced, and that it was clear that they had their own story, but that the author didn't distract us from the actual story by running off after them.
  This, to me, is a great way of dealing with that - each important but non-action central character gains their own book later. It reminds me of the way in which academic research could send you off down fascinating rabbit holes. They wouldn't fit properly into your thesis, but by turning them into articles or conference papers allowed you to follow your thread to it's natural stopping point without damaging the storyline of your thesis work.
  Like The Goblin Emperor, this is a gentle book, even when there are scenes of action, fear and/or danger, I always felt a certain sense of confort while reading them. I'm looking forward to picking up the next book from the Library in October - it's waiting for me now!
• A Master of Djinn / P. Djèlí Clark
• I was initially both pleased and disappointed to see the synopsis of this novel. I'd loved all the short stories the author had already written in this world, but I had a preference for the protagonist of The Haunting of Tram Car 015. However Fatma, the protagonist of the novel and others of the prequel shorts, won me over fairly quickly and I enjoyed her leading role. Other characters we met previously also make cameo (or more meaty) roles, which was pleasant. I love this semi-steampunk alternate historical Cairo setting, especially as I was getting exceedingly bored of yet another novel set in the US.
• Who Fears Death / Nnedi Okorafor
• This is again a welcome change of setting for me. It was a hard book, but one I enjoyed. I feel that having aphantasia made it less traumatic to read for me than for many others, so I would counsel anyone with a history of SA to be at least aware of the themes before reading. Did I like the end? No, but also yes. This book took me a long time to read, but unintentionally. I had just started reading it as my commuting book when lockdown happened, and I lost my "enforced reading time", which I'm only just starting to reclaim. Every time I managed to sit down with it, I was disappointed to stop, but then it would be months before I got another chunk of it done. So, on holiday this year I chose one day to just read so I could sit down to finish it all at once. It was worth the effort.

I currently have about 8 books on the go, plus another dozen out from the library (either print, ebook, or audio), so for the rest of this year my plan is to try to whittle those down as much as possible. 

One thing I've given myself, is 15-45 minutes every night to read something - chapter of a book, a short story, an article, doesn't matter. I started when I came back from a conference in Wales earlier this month, and it was lovely. By setting myself small targets, I think I can cheese my brain out of "but I never have the time"... 

Things Suggested to Me

Things I haven't read as of yet, but intend to track down.

1. The Neurodivergent Friendly Workbook of DBT Skills (Amazon link)